Reflections On Hair
Reflections On Hair
Signed Mixed Media
Roy Lichtenstein
Mixed Media, 1990
Signed Mixed Media Edition of 68
H 126cm x W 99cm
Critical Review
Reflections On Hair from 1990 belongs to Roy Lichtenstein’s Reflections series. The sequence takes the artist’s popular designs and disrupts them by seemingly depicting them through a glass lens. As opposed to a simple concept of ‘theme and variation’, the Reflections series plays with Lichtenstein’s favoured ideas of light and reflection.
The partly hidden images in this sequence are altered and obscured by the fractions of stylised glass, pushing them to the point of abstraction. The subjects are glimpsed between sharp mirrored shapes that break and refract the surface of the image. With these works, Lichtenstein presents disjointed collages and graphic compositions of reflective light.
Similar to Reflections On Girl of the same series, Reflections on Hair depicts a stereotypical comic-style blonde girl. In line with the artist’s portraits of cartoon heroines from the 1960s, the composition is cropped and fragmented. Locks of golden hair constitute the only identifiable elements, as the rest of the figure’s face is obscured by abstract reflective streaks. The dynamic contours of the curls are juxtaposed against the rigid, artificially straight lines of the glass. These form a jarring contrast between the different layers in the composition, drawing attention to the multitude of different patterns, colours and forms.
